Syrian Forces Kill 21 Civilians, 3 Army Deserters

Syrian security forces killed 21 civilians and were clashing with army deserters in a town near the central city of Hama on Wednesday, activists and a human rights group said.

Twenty-one civilians and three army deserters were killed at the hands of security forces, five of them under torture, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.

The LCC said nine people were killed in the central province of Hama, ten in the flashpoint central province of Homs, two in the northern province of Aleppo, two in the northwestern province of Idlib and one in the coastal province of Latakia.

Elsewhere, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime forces used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse students demonstrating in Daraya, in Damascus province, and residents of a town in Idlib province were on strike to protest their living conditions.

"Four civilians were killed in Kafr Nbuda by security forces who attacked the town, while clashes are underway between the regular army and deserters," the Britain-based group said in a statement received by Agence France Presse.

Referring to the general strike in Maaret al-Noman, the Observatory said "electricity is cut in the town for more than 12 hours a day. There is a shortage of fuel, and Internet and communications are also cut, while the streets are full of barricades."

Separately, state news agency SANA said an army colonel and two soldiers were killed and two others wounded by a "terrorist group" as they were traveling to join their units outside Damascus.

And another colonel was captured by an "armed terrorist group" as he headed to a military airport in Homs province.

On Tuesday, 22 civilians died around the country in the ongoing regime crackdown on protesters.

The United Nations estimated last month that more than 5,000 people had been killed in the crackdown on anti-regime protests that erupted in March, and many of them have been gunned down during street protests.

Damascus accuses "armed terrorist gangs" of fomenting the bloodshed.

In a speech on Tuesday, his first public appearance in months, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed to crush "terrorism" with an iron fist.

"Regional and international parties who are trying to destabilize Syria can no longer falsify the facts and events," the embattled leader said in the nearly two-hour speech.

That prompted opposition movements to accuse him of pushing Syria toward civil war and world powers to accuse him of trying to shift the blame for the 10 months of bloodletting in the protests against his regime.